Brussels Marathon

After successfully finishing the 20 km of Brussels and the Brussels half-marathon in 2016, I decided that I should try to run a marathon before the end of 2017. Since I ran all my races in Brussels so far, it seemed only fitting that the Brussels marathon would be the event of choice.

I decided to take this seriously, so I trained through winter to stay in shape. Nonetheless, I only started really training for the marathon distance after the 20km of Brussels which I ran in May. Four months of training later, I got up early on the first of October to see if I was capable of finishing my first marathon!

The Race

Before I start to talk about my personal experience of the race and the months of training leading up to it, I should probably talk about the actual race. The Marathon of Brussels is a fairly difficult marathon due to the amount of hills that have to be tackled. It doesn’t help that the majority of these hills occur during the second half of the race.

The race starts at the Jubelpark/Cinquantenaire, after which it takes you to the centre of Brussels. From here on out, you take some tunnels on the Avenue Louise, after which you make a small loop in Ter Kamerenbos/Bois de la Cambre. After leaving the forest, you make a large half circle which takes you past Hermann-Debroux leading you to the intersection of the Vorstlaan and the Tervurenlaan. From here on out you make a long, steep climb towards the Sonian Forest. Once you leave the forest you run over the highway around Brussels, towards Tervuren. In tervuren, you make a big circle around some lovely park, after which you run all the way back to the intersection of the Vorstlaan and Tervurenlaan which I mentioned earlier. At this point, you have to make the dreaded climb up the Tervurenlaan, which already provides plenty of suffering when you don’t have 35 kilometres behind you. From here on out, you reach the Jubelpark again, from where you take the Rue Belliard towards the city centre. If you make it up this final hill, you can breathe a sigh of relief, since the last two kilometres of the race go downhill. At the end of these final kilometres, you cross the Grande Place after which you finally arrive at the Brussels Stock Exchange.

Preparation

Training

Since it worked well for me for the 20k of Brussels, I decided to train according to a schedule of two short (generally 10K), and one long run per week. This long run would gradually build towards the marathon distance, peaking at 35K. Every fourth week of training would be a rest week, which generally consisted of one or two light runs or no running at all. During the final few weeks, I decided to make my short runs a bit longer, and to plan them closer together, this would allow me to simulate some extra long runs for my legs.

Since I live fairly close to the course, most of my long runs took me towards Tervuren. This would allow me to gain some knowledge about the difficult parts of this specific marathon.

Strategy

Due to my lack of marathon experience, I decided to not go too crazy with the strategy. Based on timing from some of my long runs, I decided to try to run 5 minutes and 20 second per kilometre on average, which is close to the average pace that the 3:45 minutes pacing group would run. Thus, my strategy would consist of staying near the 3:45 pacing group at the start and see how I was feeling throughout the race. I had also decided early in my training that I would allow myself to take a short walking break when I encountered a resupply post. Most importantly, I would try my hardest to not go out too fast. Of course, this is exactly what I ended up doing anyway.

Race week

I did not run during the week of the race. Instead, I refrained from drinking any alcohol or from touching any coffee. I tried to eat a bit healthier than I normally would, and I made sure I slept enough. On Friday and Saturday (the race was on Sunday), I doubled my carbohydrate intake, this led to me eating nearly a kilogram of food multiple times! Thanks for cooking, Yitian and dad!

Race day!

I got up at 6 in the morning in order to eat a nice plate of premade pasta (thanks dad, again). Eating my breakfast three hours before I departed would give the food plenty of time to digest, while also leaving me enough time to ensure my sugar levels were right before I departed for my marathon.

After fruitlessly trying to get my digestive system activated for some time, I got ready and headed towards the start zone at merode.

Once there, I did some last minute stretches while waiting for a friend to arrive. A few minutes after I met him my digestive tract alerted me that it was finally awake. I went for a last-minute bathroom visit, ate some extra sugar just in case, and went to the corrals. Once there, I split up from the aforementioned friend (who had a different goal time), found my corral, and anxiously awaited 9 a clock, which is when my first marathon would officially start!

The Marathon!

The start of the marathon went fairly smoothly. Unlike the 20K and some other races, people could enter a corral of their choosing based on the goal time that they had in mind. This seemed to work well, since I did not have to weave through the crowd a lot at the start of the race. During the first km of the race, I slowly caught up with the 3:45 pace group (who started a bit before me). Once I reached them however, I felt like I could easily run a bit faster without straining myself. I was worried that I was going out too fast, but since my heart rate seemed be fine I decided to push ahead anyway. Less than two kilometres into the race, I had left the pace group behind me and I pushed forwards, past the royal palace, towards the palace de justice.

The next 15 kilometres of the race were fairly uneventful: I kept a fairly consistent pace, slowing down every now and again when I felt like I was going too fast. During this time, we ran through the tunnels of the Avenue Louise, looped the Bois de la Cambre, and slowly made a big loop towards the Tervurenlaan. These kilometres went by quite fast, since the going was still quite easy at this point. It also helped that most of the kilometres after km 13 or so were downhill.

After the first 16-17K of running, the real race would begin. At this point, we reached the Tervurenlaan, and headed off to the right (the half marathon would go to the left, though they left later than us, so everybody just headed right). Kilometres 16.5 to 20 were one long, steep climb, which presents the first real obstacle in the race. Luckily for me, kilometre 17 was also the location where I would meet my group of loyal fans (which sounds more impressive than my parents and girlfriend) for the first time. They told me I was still looking in good shape (which was true, I was only feeling my stomach complaining around this time), and encouraged me to stay at it. Motivated by some familiar faces, I went up the hill and sped on into the Sonian forest.

The combination of some welcome shade, a nice view and a flat road made the Sonian forest a nice and therefore uneventful area to run in. I stuck to my pace, crossed the “vierarmen”/”quatre bras” crossing and went into tervuren. At this point, I also crossed the halfway point, with an official split of 01:46:02, which put me more than 6 minutes ahead of my target pace at this point in time.

Heading into Tervuren, I could see some of the top runners on their way back towards Brussels. After a short descent, I had to start climbing again, and I noticed that I started to be a bit too happy to be able to walk when I arrived at the resupply post in front of the “Koloniëpaleis”. Regardless, I headed into the pretty park of Tervuren, which loops around, putting us back on the way to Brussels.

Around this time I started to notice that my heart rate was consistently high for the pace I was running. Unable to do anything about this, I headed back towards Brussels, but not before I encountered my fan group for a second time near the Koloniëpaleis!

Soon after meeting them, I saw another familiar face, as I crossed my friend while he was heading towards Tervuren. I shouted him some words of encouragement (which were far louder than I thought they would be, considering how exhausted I was getting) and continued downhill.

Soon after, we had to climb back out of Tervuren, which made up the second heavy climb of the course. By this time I was really starting to feel the effect of the marathon; my legs were still okay, but my high heart rate was making me increasingly nauseous. It was also around this time that I passed the 30km checkpoint, which I passed at 02:33:47, still almost 6 minutes ahead of schedule.

The following kilometres through the Sonian forest and down the Tervurenlaan I had to climb earlier were fairly uneventful, though at this point I was really feeling the exhaustion. I motivated myself by telling myself that it was only 10 more kilometres and kept at it. Soon, I reached the 35km mark (the same spot I mentioned going right earlier), which is where the half-marathon and the marathon ended up joining. Most of the people that were at that point in the half-marathon at that time seemed to be running at a slower pace than I was; this was nice for motivation, but it made it tricky to stay at a steady pace, since I was constantly passing people. Furthermore, based on the amount of people around the track shouting “allez Mathijs!” and “Courage Mathijs!” I think I must have really looked quite dead at this point.

The attentive reader may remember that this is the point where the course would head up a steep hill again: the dreaded Tervurenlaan, a 2km climb. I gritted my teeth and started the steep climb, it didn’t help that I never ran more than 35km in my life up until that point either. I pushed myself to keep on going, telling myself that it would be stupid to let my “fans” come all this way just to see me walk. This kept me motivated for some time until I eventually met my little fan group again. They shouted that I was nearly there and told me to keep on going.

Unfortunately I couldn’t keep this up. A few minutes after I passed my fans, I couldn’t take it any more and decided that I needed to walk for a minute (I justified this to myself due to my heart rate which was well above 190 at that point). After recovering for a bit I started running again and headed towards Merode.

Soon after passing through the Cinquentenaire/Jubelpark again though, I noticed that all of the little walks I took at the aid stations and at the Tervurenlaan meant that the 3:45 was now quite close behind me. I gritted my teeth (again) and pushed forwards, unwilling to lose the lead I had had on the group for nearly 40 kilometres.

My newfound determination carried me to the Rue Belliard, which seemed to have transformed into a gruelling mountain since the first time I had climbed it earlier that day. Once again, I made it up most of the hill before I decided that I would need to give up and take another short walk. Throughout the walk I could gradually see the 3:45 group move closer towards me, and I realised I would probably fail to reach my goal time by a few seconds if I let them pass me. While I was coming to this realization, a man that was running just in front of the group told me that I should stick to it, and that I would only need to run for 200m for the climb to be over. I agreed with him, reminded myself that I only had to run 2 more kilometres and took off again, leaving the group behind me once more. Thank you mystery man!

My final few pieces of determination carried me up the hill, after which I realised that after the next 500m or so the remainder of the race would all be downhill. Telling myself that I could do it, I ran past the parc, and on to the downhill. Once I made it there it felt like gravity was doing most of the work, carrying me all the way to the Grand Place. Soon afterwards, I could see the 42km marker in front of me, victory was near! After passing the marker, I could hear the audience at the finish yelling, I turned my last corner, forced myself to run a few more metres, and finished my first ever marathon!

Results and Aftermath

Soon after I finished, I saw my group of fans, who told me that I finished in 03:42:03, a time I was really happy with! My main goal was to finish the marathon in less than 4 hours, but my secret goal was to finish it in 3 hours and 45 minutes. Finishing even faster was something that I did not expect when I left!

I picked up my medal and found my little fanclub (who luckily didn’t notice that I had to hold back a tear or two) and a friend who ran the half-marathon. Together, we grabbed a (well deserved) beer kindly provied by Belfius. Once my other friend arrived, we all decided to grab some lunch together. However, at this point, it seemed that my stomach was really not happy: I ended up seeing parts of my breakfast again in a trashcan in Brussels. Lesson learned: don’t eat mushrooms before you run a marathon! In spite of all that, I was feeling quite well once I got some sleep and time to recover. Most of all, the feeling I had after finishing was well worth those few instances of nausea!

Final remarks

All in all, I am very, very happy with my eventual result. I only regret the walks that I needed to take on the Tervurenlaan and Rue Belliard. I wonder if I could have avoided those if I started slower. It’s also possible that I would not have made those parts without walking anyway, in which case the 6 minutes lead I had was invaluable to making my goal time.

Most of all however, I’m very happy that I finally completed my first marathon, and I’m super thankful for everybody that was there to help me during my training and on the day of the marathon itself. Some shoutouts go to my parents and girlfriend for forming my little fan club that kept me going throughout the actual race, to Ann of the UZ team for her great advice, to my dad and girlfriend for cooking my carb-loaded meals and to my mom for the good genes, advice and for consistently worrying about my marathon plans. A special shoutout goes to Yitian, my girlfriend, for the aforementioned meals and for keeping me going throughout the past few months!